#Oswald Cobb one shot

[justanoasisimagines]

Being in a relationship with Oswald

Hey my lovelies, this man still has a vice on me and I'm not complianing. Anyway, my requests are open for everything except fics. You can find my request guidelines pinned to the top of top of the page! Credit to cafekitsune for the banner and the divider!

❀Oswald is an old-school type of gentleman. He's going to spoil you rotten. He's going to buy you gifts. He's going to be the proudest man to have you on his arm. You're never going to have to open a door or pull out a chair again. Not while he's around.

❀Oswald loves to buy you clothes. He especially loves to see you wearing purple. His color. He loves seeing you in the dress he's brought for you or the pair of jeans that fit your body just right. Oswald doesn't hide it, he enjoys looking at you, you're his goddess.

❀Oswald is always giving you compliments. He wants to boost you up on the days you're not feeling yourself. Something he wishes people did for him, but he won't it happen to you.

❀Oswald is possessive. He doesn't like anyone touching or looking at you. He's quick to remind people that you belong to him as he does you. He has no problem getting rid of people if they invade that boundary.

❀Oswald has a jealousy issue. It comes from an insecurity, he doesn't believe he's good enough so therefore he's terrified of losing you. Oswald will react before he thinks about certain situations. Sometimes he can't see the innocence in situations before he reacts. He just doesn't want to lose you.

❀Oswald uses nicknames Doll, Sweetheart, Beautiful, Angel, etc.

❀Oswald wants you to know he can look after you, and provide for you. He doesn't want you to feel like you have to work to the bone. If you want to work that's fine and he'll support it but he doesn't want to make you. If you needed a job, he'd find one down at the club for you.

❀Oswald is going to bring flowers and chocolates for you at the start of every date. He's always dressed smartly and takes pride in his appearance. Especially when you're with him. He wants you to be proud to be on his arm.

❀It takes Oswald a while to feel comfortable enough to take off his shoes and socks in front of you. He knows the sight isn't pretty and he can't blame you if you're disgusted by it. He is.

❀Having to remind Oswald to rest. You've seen firsthand how much pain he's in with his foot. He comes to you sometimes in agony, proclaiming he's fine but you know he's not. Although he won't vocalize it, he's grateful and flattered you care. He never puts up a fuss when you tell him to sit down.

❀Oswald introducing you to his mother is a big deal. You two would be together for at least a year before he thinks about inviting you over to meet her. It's a huge milestone for Oswald, he loves his mother. She's the only family he has left, so he desperately wants her approval.

❀Oswald is prepared to kill for you. You bring out a desire to protect you amongst all else. He doesn't care who it is or why. If he needs to he will protect you at all costs.

[reelvibes91]

Surveying the Gotham Landscape after The Penguin

The Penguin finale has now come and gone. There is a lot to unpack over the course of the series. This show said it would directly impact the future of what Matt Reeves was planning for the city of Gotham and Batman. Truthfully, it doesn't really seem like they did that in any major way.

We knew Oswald Cobb was set to become a major power player. Reeves confirmed early on Colin Farrell would be back as Penguin for that film. Inadvertently, he gave the series only a few viable outcomes in saying anything about what the future holds. The lone bright spot from the finale was that we have not seen the last of Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone/Gigante.

Over the course of the series, there was more to be expected in the outcome. However, it felt unearned for Oz. He got where he was by making one decision, and it was a decision that he ultimately did not have to make. He did nothing definitive outside of spin a web of lies, and for some reason, everyone with a shred of intelligence never looked any further. Batman even sat out the entire events of one man and his hand in blowing up the city. A Batman who we got reference to in the final 30 seconds of this year. He is now suddenly going to stick his nose back into the business of Oswald after being absent for a while. A Batman who was staking out Gotham and the major players in The Batman film just disappeared right until it felt convenient to remind us.

The first half of the series felt well planned out. As if a series of events was leading to something more concrete and decisive. We never got that. Sofia started and ended the series in Arkham. She just knows now that she has a half-sister out there. A character we already knew about mind you and knew all these secrets about. It does not feel like there is enough story here to make that the only plot point for The Batman 2.

There were a couple of ways they could have gone around this. Some characters could have easily made small appearances. Let's just throw some names around. Perhaps Hady could have mentioned Oz's biggest threat in city hall was not the mayor but a new hot shot DA. Easy. Perhaps Sofia could have been introduced to a new doctor. Easy Batman has more than one shady doctor in his rogues Gallery. Perhaps Reeves could have done a bait and switch and had one of the characters' features slightly shift into a new form.

It really seems like this series felt like it was achieving more for the long term story telling then it actually did. When this series started getting compared to some of the greatest crime dramas ever, it created a sense of hesitancy. Not because shows can't achieve that level, as many have over the years. The reason the hesitancy set in was because those shows all did something bold. Being bold and resetting the status quo is what the greatest of all time do. In every aspect. What the Penguin did and all it did was provide us a little bit of extra content during a long ass wait for The Batman Part 2.

[dg-outlaw]

'The Penguin - Episode 1: After Hours' Review/Thoughts

** Mild Spoilers Ahead **

So I'll start off by saying, I'm not a big fan of mobster/drug lord movies and shows. Same goes for the rich people/corporate shows like Succession or Billions. Basically, if the general premise is; these people are rich and/or powerful, come watch them betray, kill, and/or be assholes to other people and one another to achieve and maintain that wealth or power, and there's likely to be no justice had... then yeah, not for me. If anything, watching Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) was more about catharsis than entertainment for me. IYKYK.

Obviously, I know there's more nuance than that when it comes to many of these shows and movies as there's also outstanding performances and interesting storylines, but something about them reminding me of the injustices and/or corporate greed of the real world just puts me off most of the time. If I'm going to watch media like that then I usually have to be in a certain mood for it or I'm hooked by the characters.

Early previews of The Penguin gave me the same mobster vibe as many crime shows. There will be no heroes, no Batman, and likely no real justice, but being in the Batman and Matt Reeves Bat-verse, I wanted to give it a shot.

Is The Penguin different from other mobster crime shows? Yes and no. No, in that it still has all the mobster show flavor and if it weren't in the Batman world, I'd maybe give it a pass, but because it is Batman and Gotham, then yes, there's enough interesting flavor here to keep me wanting to see what happens next.

If you're not aware, this series takes place soon after the events of Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022). Carmine Falcone is dead, Gotham is still recovering from the flood caused by The Riddler, though it seems the parts of Gotham mostly affected and still in disarray are the lower-income areas, and Batman is... probably napping? IDK, but it'll be interesting to see how Batman gets interwoven into this series or is generally not present.

Colin Farrell returns as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin... or as he's referenced in the series, Oz Cobb, and he's looking to make a name for himself.

Without getting into the details (as there are likely a million legit summary reviews of Episode 1 online now), Oz quickly sets things in motion that starts a series of dominoes falling that may or may not result in his downfall before he even begins his climb to the top of the crime world, and I guess this is where the show finds its intrigue. In my mind, it's very Breaking Bad in the sense that you keep watching just to see what happens next. Will our protagonist get caught and meet a horrible fate or will they actually get away with it and achieve their goals... and at what cost? And why am I rooting for the bad guy? But instead of just fumbling down into the depths of the crime world like Walter White, Oz wants this, he wants to be on top, but the question is, has he bitten off more than he can chew or will he finally take hold of the brass ring?

Ultimately, I think it's the Gotham world and characters that has me wanting to see more and to see how it all plays out. This is not to say that the performances aren't great or the characters aren't intriguing, and Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone is definitely scary, even if she's not comically accurate as a some giant mountain of a woman, but again, part of this is knowing the characters from comics and other media depictions. I don't need the full Penguin backstory or to know all about the Falcones and Maronis, the comics and other media have done that setup already, but it does help with investment IMO.

Also, I love the grime of this Gotham and also how it's contrasted with the wealth and cleanliness of other parts of Gotham, especially outside of downtown. The creators understood the assignment for this show and it definitely plays a part when it comes to motivations. This Gotham isn't one note and I'm glad that it doesn't look like some clean set that takes you out of the world and reminds you that you're watching a TV show, like so many streaming shows and movies do nowadays. Yes, there's violence and language and Farrell, once again, disappears into the role of Penguin, but there's also some humor in this show. The humor fits and doesn't feel forced, but it also allows the audience to breathe for a moment and enjoy the experience.

So, I think if you're a Batman fan, you know these characters a little bit, and you want to go into a show that is likely to not have Batman or any other heroes, I say, jump in and enjoy. But if you're not as familiar or are a casual fan, and you're not really into crime/mobster shows, then this might not be for you.

Also, new canon (I think?) that The Penguin is a fan of Dolly Parton or at least has a mix CD of 'Go out there and get it' songs, is so fun. I still HC that Parton's "9 to 5" is a Duke Thomas song he plays every morning before getting ready for patrol, but having that little extra character note for The Penguin was a nice touch and gave a new character, Victor, a little more insight into his new boss.

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin: Episode 6 "Gold Summit" Breakdown

To taking back Gotham

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 3) (Episode 4) (Episode 5) (Episode 7) (Episode 8)

"His family's still fucking ash" lmao you fucking piece of shit

Rules that this follows directly from last episode's triumphant ending and that here we open in what could be an opening monologue for The Batman 2: On Ice. Shots of the city interspersed with a biker making his way underground to the sound of music while we hear our protagonist talking about the changing tides for the city that eventually turns out to be happening in real time (Bruce writing down on his journal - Oz giving a pep talk to his dealers). Love that this opening speech is Oz's take on the Something In The Way Hmmmmm Monologue.

Gotham already divided into feudal warlordism with the gangs scrapping for territory amongst each other and Oz the guy who's most qualified to seize them as clients because he's under all of them and knows the city like the back of his hand

I love the opening speech he gives to Victor and I'll quote it here

"Look around. Look at what we got, kid. The good people of Crown Point, hard at woick, right? Protectin us. Keepin this whole fuckin ting quiet. We got their loyalty. And we got their love. You know why? Cause we pay 'em. You know how meaningful that is, Vic? To be da guy in the neighborhood who takes care a'people? They're gonna tell stories about us one day, kid. Victor Aguilar....and Oswald Cobb...yeah. Our names are gonna live forever...

I love the way he delivers these last lines, like he can't even believe it himself. He says Victor Aguilar in friendly pep talk mode and then stops and sobers up once he says his own name, like he can't even believe that he's not bullshitting anymore and this is all actually happening. Maybe the first time he's ever opened his heart about his dream to anyone other than maybe his ma, and wasn't rebuffed or dismissed for it, the first time he ever seriously meant it

Oz openly admits that he's paying for their love and regards having that love as an unbelievable personal milestone because the dude cannot conceive of non-transactional love

Oz 100% convinced that being the guy who sells drugs to the community and implicates them all in his underground black market is him being the great neighborhood guy who takes care of people is just so Oz, such a Penguin thing from him. So sincerely and utterly childishly convinced of his own hype, the most ardent believer in his own bullshit.

It's great that for Sofia, the hardened gangster and family enemy is this warm father figure here to mostly lend moral support and steer her right as best he can, and the repentant "nice guy" therapist devoted to her is the dark twisted bad boy she can fuck and workshop forms of torture with.

Clancy Brown in his natural element playing a criminal dad. I love that he gets a role here where he can bring so much warmth and affection and sorrow to it.

I love that Sal Maroni, partially because of his role as the opposite of Carmine Falcone, is kind of an easily-played chump, and this is prominent in the scene they'll have later at Oz's apartment with Sal blinded with rage smashing anything he can find while Sofia's the one who actually finds a path to Oz, but I also like their conversation here where he corrects her in thinking that the Triads won't back down on their deal, providing some needed experience and street knowledge to Sofia, who is still relatively naive given her upbringing and isolation.

I love the contrast set this episode, between Oz and Sofia's family units, both with their sidekick and their family member. Sofia and Sal with a lovely dinner made from an old family recipe inside the opulent Falcone mansion, while Oz and Victor and Francis squat in a stolen apartment on the the apocalyptically shitty Crown Point over scrambled eggs not even with any electricity in the building.

Every scene with Francis just crushes me, trust me if I don't talk about her enough it's certainly not because there's nothing to talk about. I don't wanna think about what kind of horrible bomb they're sitting on regarding how Oz's brothers died, I don't even wanna think about Francis' scenes in general even if they're all terrific.

This one line does so much to explain what is up with Oz's worship of Rex Calabrese. He wasn't just this cool guy who ran the neighborhood and had a cool chariot and took care of people and died the kind of death Oswald desperately wants to have, he was the guy who got shit done, the guy that Oz's mom relied on more so than his actual dad. He was the guy who got the closest to achieving the main and only thing Oz wants, to be the guy who can take care of his mother.

The whole bit with Jack is even more crushing. You get where Oz's hurt is coming from, you get why he think Victor's crossing a line, you get he doesn't want to set her up for even more dissappointment and why he needs to be hard and real with her as she is to him, but at the same time, you also get why Francis is so miserable a lot of the time. Victor actually is vastly more qualified to tending to her emotional needs than Oz, he actually does have nurse-like qualities as a result of his mom, he's doing what you're instructed to do with dementia patients and Francis gets the tiniest little nugget of joy and relief, before Oz rips it away and stomps on it, in no small part because he still refuses to admit what's happening to her, and he cannot accept that he's not taking care of her the way she needs someone to. Oz is trying his damndest to and it's not working, he's not good at it. Even besides the shithole they're in because of his actions, he's not good at being warm and thoughtful and considerate to other people, and he was never raised to be. This is the one thing in the world he wants and needs to do more than anything else, and he just sucks at it no matter how hard he tries.

"The hanging and the pinky? Jesus Sofia, pick a fucking lane" lmao

Just in case you forgot that this is a guy who cares about the branding, the trademarks of how you murder people and sign your name on it, seen all the way from bickering with Victor in Episode 1 over the best way to deliver the corpse to the Falcones. Of course he cares about the branding, he's a Batman Villain.

Love the creeping musical sting that plays as he figures out what to do, when he gets his impossible idea to solve an impossible conundrum. Love the cigar that teleports into his lips mid cut.

What Sofia says here, that Oz's greatest asset is that he has nobody he cares about. It isn't true of Oz for now, but it definitely rings true of her, that there's not really anyone she cares about that is still alive and thus Oz can't hurt her nearly as much as she can hurt him.

LEFRANC: We know Oz's brothers have died, and we don't really know why or how it happened. But with that, I think, comes a very heightened relationship between Francis and Oz. It's just the two of them now. So all the love that Francis had across three boys is put into one man, and every - all her hopes and dreams for whatever this person could do across three boys is all put into one person. And it felt interesting to explore, in part, why she's so intent on having him succeed. O'CONNELL: There is nobody. It's just the two of them They had to let go of a lot of relationships to just keep this clarity. I think they moved through a lot of people - The Penguin Podcast Episode 6

I totally forgot that Oswald giving his mother jewelry he attained from bloody methods comes from Pain and Prejudice and honestly I kinda forgot most of that comic in general, although I'm not surprised to hear directly that this was the Penguin comic Lauren LeFranc named as a reference, that much is kinda obvious.

I think I said before that I'm not too big a fan of Pain and Prejudice and that my feelings on it only really got more mixed to negative over time, even though there are still things about it I do very much like. It doesn't actually matter that much because the show doing incredible redefining definitive stuff out of largely mediocre comics is something this saga has been doing since the movie (Long Halloween, Hush, fucking Earth One), spinning gold out of manure is one of the strongest points of adapting this stuff in the first place. I'm mostly bringing this up because I don't want to talk about that scene, some scenes I just wanna digest privately and not pour a ramble on top of them.

Cannot get over the close-up of Oz putting lipstick on his mom while we see the dirt beneath his fingers.

Love that Victor's eventual decision to murder Squid starts from this scene where he tries to reach out to Oz for a solution to this problem, and sees that Oz is not even remotely in the mental space to think about this right now, and so Vic sidesteps the issue and decides to try and handle it solo with money. I love that Victor's first murder comes not from Oz telling him to do it, not even implying it, but from Victor's emotional intelligence leading him to figure out where Oz is at and decide not to overload him with another burden, correctly trying to handle the situation himself but incorrectly assuming he could just appeal to cash-based compromise like he could with the cop. I like that it's specifically a very Victor decision and situation to arrive at, done not because of anything Oz decides but to protect Oz and Francis as his new family.

I like that "he has nurse-like qualities" wasn't just a dumb joke, but an extremely accurate assessment of Victor's character disguised as a dumb joke.

Hahaha fuck yeah they did a "Could be worse, my nose could be gushing blood" bit.

This isn't a show that's really committed to nerd references but there were definitely a lot more than in most previous episodes and that includes what feels like several references to Batman Returns. The coat he wears underground, the politician nose mangling, the cold underground hideout, power being siphoned from the city, I was kinda parsing them as mostly coincidences and then it turned out that Oz's cold miserable apartment was in the fucking Zoo of all things.

I've grown increasingly mixed-to-negative feelings on comic book villains, and specifically Batman villains, painted as overtly sympathetic and justified anti-heroes scrapping against bigger and more blatantly uncomplicatedly evil targets like the government and Elon Musk pastiches and yadda yadda, largely because I increasingly do not care for dumb simplistic toothless bullshit done with characters sold as violent and edgy and morally complicated and etc, that's a whole other thing. I'm just prefacing this because, all else said, Penguin threatening and sticking pliers up a corrupt politician's nose to force him to put the power back on a poor neighborhood, even if it was really just for his mom and criminal operation, was extremely cool and good and I was rooting for him the whole time (well, more so than I already am).

"You think you can just raw dog the people of Gotham with an invisible dick?" Thank you Dan Fuchs, this Fuchs, I know you're very happy you got this through WB.

BADIE: You would think Eve's apartment, the way she presents herself in her outdoor appearence, you would think she'd be slightly more pulled together, but you see she is vulnerable. You did see wigs cause that's her thing. She's costuming. She plays characters all the time in her world, and with Oz and with everybody. Just like she said, Oz doesn't like to see her in her natural state. They want the fantasy. - The Penguin Podcast Episode 6

Much like the scene with Francis at the bathtub was a keystone they used to figure out the rest of the character, the scene with Eve here definitely feels like the scene that informs her entire role and justification for being here, a real highlight of the series.

Excellent twist for a start, leading us (and Sofia) to assume Roxy was selling out Eve, using Sofia's natural expectations towards distrust and backstabbings and her preconceived notions about these people as well as ours, playing off how we were already narratively primed to mistrust Roxy based on her prior appearences, before revealing Eve asked her to do it so she could take the bullet for her girls. LeFranc calls them the strongest family unit in the show and this scene proves it (and also makes me think Oz will definitely ruin it down the line)

Extremely good tennis match scene between them, Eve trying to maneuver herself into the least disgraceful way to die while Sofia tries to maneuver her into a more justifiable victim, and then the Hangman is brought up and then turned around and it sinks in for both of them that this is not going where they expected it to, and how they both have more in common than realized until by the end they're almost on the same page, because Sofia maneuvered Eve into a position where she cannot blame Sofia for what she's doing / condemn her as a privileged monster, and Eve maneuvered Sofia into a position where she can't kill her without proving her right / becoming her father.

I didn't think they were neglecting the severity of it, but I'm glad to see it spat out on such clear terms here that Oz was complicit in the horrible shit Carmine did to those sex workers, that Oz sold out Sofia for a job promotion, that he knew that Carmine killed his wife and those women and knew that he'd keep on killing and kept quiet about it, that he has no business parading himself as an ally and a friend to Eve and her girls when he helped cover up the brutal murders of her friends.

Sofia goes into that interaction with a lot of preconceived notions about who this person is and a lot of judgments about why would you perform for men? Sofia comes from her own very privileged life, even though her life has been absolutely and utterly awful. She still, I think, comes in with a lot of judgment and disdain. Also, she knows Eve has been part of the lie about the death of her brother, and that is such an engine for her that everyone must pay for her loss. But she sees in Eve someone who has also been underestimated and overlooked. Who she encounters is actually extremely smart and real, and I think just gets through to her. Clearly, Sofia’s body count at this point in the show is so many. [laughs] But she still has a very specific code of villain ethics. She can’t be responsible for taking the life of someone in the way that she was accused of. It’s almost like Tony Soprano with the Ducks. She spares a child. She won’t engage in the type of murder that she was accused of, especially when she connects with someone. But then when it comes to her family, other people on the show, it’s not even a thought. - Cristin Milioti

Eve with the umbrella symbol, the person in the show who is most concerned about protecting her family / the people under her from the world surrounding them, to the point she is willing to die not just for the girls but for Oz, until it sinks in just how deeply Oz has always been betraying her and she's willing to let Sofia have her chance to kill him even when she's already out the door sparing her.

This is part of why LeFranc has repeteadly stressed that she wanted Oz to be a man who respects women, who relates and acts differently towards them than other gangsters. Not just because of how it reflects his relationship with his mom, but because of his relationship with Eve and this scene. The actions he takes and the brutality against them he's complicit in, no matter how nice and respectful and upstanding he is at them to their faces, because he still backstabbed them and fed their friends to the meat grinder. Even if there was nothing he could do against the Falcones and he had his mother to take care of first and foremost, even if he had his reasons, he still pushed them under the bus and profited from his silence and acted like he was such a big fucking friend to them all.

Someone who can be the biggest feministest ally of all time to women they're friends with / want to fuck / will do things for them, not even entirely in a fake self-serving way but actively believing they're being a good guy doing right by them, and still be passively and actively complicit in horrific misogynistic brutalities, and they will even be rewarded for it.

If you don't know someone who calls himself your good ally, and who would sit by and let the Hangman cruelly butcher you and your loved ones, in return for a promotion or out of mere personal convenience and never even think twice about it, well who am I kidding, you obviously know someone like that, you know a thousand someones like that.

Extremely rules that we get Sofia and Eve, embodying the two different extremes of Gotham, coming together to realize how they've both been used and discarded by Oz, on the same episode he ends by giving his big Independence Day speech to rally the gangs in class warfare. I'm sure the future images we've seen of him in the fucking top hat bode extremely well for this revolution of theirs.

Lmao I was comparing him to Paulie day one and then he does the patented Sirico finger point. Surviving the Gotham wars by the skin of his nuts.

I love Gotham mob hierarchies, I would like to learn more about these guys. Love that this moment of Oz rallying up forces against the upper strata of Gotham crime families, the first time he assembles an actual criminal empire to help him, involves him calling together his own Five Families. A Five Families made from Gotham street criminals uniting under his banner to take out the last and greatest titans of the upper class organized crime that ruled the city for the past 20 years.

"They don't even know your fucking nAAAAAME"

Beautifully elegant directing, using the crackling beers in place of where any dialogue would feel a tad too corny.

Oz driving to a meeting full of gangs lining up to kill him and getting them lining up to join him is maybe a first, or at least very rare, as far as The Penguin, really any version of The Penguin, showing actual leadership skills, showing how does he get people to work for him and give him things even when he's in no position to threaten them and they disdain him and know he is not to be trusted.

(Edit by thebatfilm)

Love how Oz responds to the interruptions in the speech, how good he is at turning those extremely valid criticisms and reads around as reasons they should join up him.

People don't trust you Oz, you're a piece of shit, and you're ugly, and you ooze sleaze and you're very very ugly

I made the comparison above between Oz with the beers and Bruce with the flare because to me, this feels like Oz's pivotal moment, this is his flare moment, the scene where you can see the legend of what this man is and will become take form in front of the city. The moment this classless codeless fool, this crude little backstabber hated more than any other criminal in town, a bargain-basement hustler derisively named The Penguin, rises through the ranks to become the king of the city.

Oz taking over the world with a giant ice box

The Penguin ready to take over as soon as winter rolls into Gotham.

(Credit to @postbusters2k16 on twitter for pointing this out)

Once again, the happiest moments we'll ever see Francis in, and Oz is not there to see it.

And oh hey there's one more set of parallels, probably not intentional, but it sure seems like Victor's speedrunning his way through Jason Todd-isms. Starting off by attempting to steal the hubcaps off the Penguinmobile was one thing but this episode goes all in. The motorcycle, the gun, a criminal named Squid (who was a part of the storyline that introduced Jason Todd and Killer Croc), shooting his first criminal dead, being traumatized, getting pulled deeper into the deep end, ending the episode with a Batman Villain holding a crowbar while looming over him and his (new) mom.

Fun times ahead for everyone.

[xtruss]

5 Times U.S. Presidential Commissions Rocked the Country

What Do a Long List of Iconic and Controversial Historical Events Have in Common? They All Got The Presidential Commission Treatment.

— May 14, 2024 | Kirstin Butler

President Kennedy rides in his motorcade minutes before his assassination in Dallas in 1963. Bill Waterson/Alamy Stock Photo.

A presidential assassination. Widespread racial protest. Pearl Harbor. The high-profile explosion of a space shuttle. Highly disparate topics, but in each case, a U.S. president was moved—whether by public pressure or their own conscience—to call for a special panel investigating the causes and treatments of a pressing issue.

Presidential commissions are tasked, often under heightened political and time constraints, with explaining complex societal dynamics and events. Sometimes those analyses are heeded; other times, as with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Kerner Commission, deliberately ignored. And yet in each instance, the formation of a task force appointed to directly advise the president sends an unmistakable public message as to a problem’s significance. Here are five of the 20th century’s most iconic presidential commissions.

President and Mrs. Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife ride in the motorcade in Dallas, November 22, 1963. Victor Hugo King/Library of Congress.

Warren Commission

One week after President John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, his successor Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to investigate both Kennedy’s murder and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, the president’s alleged assassin. Led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, the commission received testimony from 550 witnesses and 3,100 reports from the FBI and Secret Service.

Nearly 10 months after the task force was formed, the commission submitted its 888-page report to President Johnson, which was subsequently made public along with 26 volumes of supporting documents. The report’s central finding—that Oswald acted alone in Kennedy’s killing, absent any national or international conspiracy—has been the focus of intense speculation and criticism in the years since its release. “As long as a mystery resides at the center of this case, it can't be closed,” investigator Josiah Thompson told American Experience. “There's this fundamental question mark that still stands there in the center of our experience in the 20th century.”

President Lyndon Johnson (Seated, Center) shakes hands with members of the Kerner Commission. July 29, 1967. White House Photo Office Collection, LBJ Presidential Library.

Kerner Commission

The second bombshell commission of Johnson’s presidency, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders—known colloquially as the Kerner or Riot Commission—was established in July 1967 following several years of urban civil uprisings across the United States. Johnson asked his task force to address three questions: “What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?”

Johnson appointed the Democratic governor of Illinois Otto Kerner as the bipartisan commission’s chair, and its field teams undertook a rigorous, on-the-ground investigation in 23 cities to try to understand the root causes of unrest that led to violence, arson and looting. The conclusion the commission members came to was shocking for its time. “White society is deeply implicated in the ghetto,” their 1968 report plainly stated. “White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” President Johnson was so dismayed that he refused to publicly acknowledge the final report, which nonetheless went on to become a national bestseller.

“The commissioners did not deign to take the easy way out,” said New Yorker journalist Jelani Cobb. “They had the vantage point of having actually seen the conditions with their own eyes, having gone to places and talked to people and come as close as they could to experiencing life in these ghettos. They told the nation what exactly the problem was, even if it meant that no one was going to listen to them.”

A U.S. battleship sinking during the Pearl Harbor attack. National Archives.

Roberts Commission

After the shocking Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an investigative task force to determine if negligence or dereliction of duty on the part of military and government officials had enabled the attack. Chaired by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, the commission was made up entirely of active or retired military officials. The investigation began in Washington, D.C. and proceeded to Honolulu, interviewing 127 witnesses. Less than two months after the surprise bombing—an extremely fast turnaround for such a significant event—the commission released its findings.

Roosevelt’s task force assigned blame chiefly to Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the U.S. military’s top army and navy commanders in the Pacific, both of whom were demoted, while exonerating several prominent political figures. The commission’s final report never specifically mentioned Japanese Americans, but a passage about “Japanese spies” received widespread media coverage, and played a critical part in turning mainstream American public opinion in favor of incarcerating U.S. citizens of Japanese descent. California’s governor confirmed the connection, saying of many of his constituents at the time, "Since the publication of the Roberts Report, they feel they are living in the midst of enemies. They don't trust the Japanese, none of them.’”

Challenger lifts off on Jan. 28, 1986 with a crew of seven astronauts. An accident 73 seconds after liftoff claimed both crew and vehicle. NASA.

Rogers Commission

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a disaster broadcast on live television. NASA immediately halted the shuttle program, and President Ronald Reagan appointed a fact-finding commission chaired by former Attorney General and Secretary of State William Rogers to determine the disaster’s cause. Prominent public figures were named commission members, including astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, pilot Chuck Yeager and physicist Richard Feynman.

Extensive commission hearings revealed both mechanical and process failures leading to the explosion. Icy conditions on the day of the shuttle’s launch compromised rubber “O ring” seals on one of the shuttle’s rocket boosters during the extreme conditions of takeoff; during one commission session Feynman spectacularly demonstrated the seal failure by plunging an O ring into a glass of ice water. Following testimony that revealed space agency managers were aware of technical problems for years prior to the Challenger mishap, the commission also faulted NASA for poor engineering and management. The explosion, read the commission’s final report, was “an accident rooted in history.”

Admiral James Watkins hands President Reagan the report of the presidential commission on the HIV epidemic. James D. Parcell/The Washington Post via Getty Images.

Watkins Commission

In June 1987, Reagan called for the formation of another fact-finding mission, this one significantly more politically charged than the Challenger’s. The purpose of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, Reagan said, was to make HIV go “the way of smallpox and polio.” Among the commission members were both Cardinal John O’Connor and gay medical researcher Frank Lilly; the latter’s appointment drew strong criticism from conservative quarters.

Almost immediately the task force ran into strong ideological and personal differences, leading its chair, vice chair, and only medical staff officer to quit three months in. In a surprise development, however, Reagan promoted an unlikely commission member to be the group’s new chairman. Admiral James D. Watkins, who had served as the U.S. Navy’s top ranking officer and a nuclear strategist, took over amid uncertainty about the panel’s effectiveness. Under his leadership, the commission strongly advised passage of anti-discrimination legislation for HIV patients, more equitable and affordable care, preventative treatment of IV drug use, and a loan program to encourage nurses to serve in communities highly impacted by the virus, among other recommendations. The commission’s final report ultimately called for a $20 billion, 10-year effort to combat the public health crisis. “It’s only seven-tenths of a percent of the defense budget,” Watkins reasoned.

[richeeduvie]

・Rules n’ Stuff .・

things abt me!

20, she/her - lives in America. I belong to many fandoms so I thank you for tolerating me during my phases lol. When I'm not posting fic content, it's mostly reblogs from fandoms, horror, and musical theater. I'm always free to a message or ask outside of content, and I hope you always enjoy!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

now taking requests!!

open to: one-shots, headcanons, alphabets, drabbles, and general asks - however! Please specify to what you are requesting (if you are requesting a drabble, hc post, etc.) so I know what you want. If you do not, it's possible I will take it as a general ask or something I have no specifics on)

Some Amazing Fanart done by you guys!

2024 RICHEEDUVIE CAMPAIGN

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

MASTERLIST

- BETTER CALL SAUL CHARACTERS -

-- LALO SALAMANCA --

LALO SALAMANCA MASTERLIST

LALO MASTERLIST (for hc's and drabbles)

ULTIMATE LALO SALAMANCA MASTERLIST (All content here and updating)

LALO SALAMANCA MOODBOARD - @chainsawsangel BIG MISTAKE (MADMAN ONE-SHOT)

Since there is plenty of content, it is most likely that not everything will be tagged. Searching up "Madman!AU" usually brings everything u want to see <3

-- HOWARD, TUCO, MARCO and LEONEL, AND NACHO --

OTHER BCS CHARACTERS MASTERLIST

BETTER CALL SAUL LIST *NON LALO* (for hc's and drabbles)

TUCO SALAMANCA MASTERLIST

TUCO SALAMANCA MASTERLIST 2

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- Travis Hackett -

• Moonstruck | one-shot

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- Anton Chigurh -

NSFW ALPHABET

Pregnancy || Headcanons

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- SUCCESSION CHARACTERS -

-- ROMAN ROY --

ROMAN ROY MASTERLIST 2

ROMAN ROY MASTERLIST

ROMAN ROY MASTERLIST (For HC's and Drabbles)

BONE AND HER HEART: ANGST ONE-SHOT, TW: ED

Since there is plenty of content, it is most likely that not everything will be tagged. Searching up "DogandBone!AU" usually brings everything u want to see <3

-- OTHER SUCCESSION CHARACTERS --

KENDALL ROY MASTERLIST

STEWY HOSSEINI: Make It Right - Blurb

WEDDING BELLS: Part One (Stewy x Reader x Roman)

LOGANWINS!AU MASTERLIST

DOG AND BONE!AU MOODBOARDS DOG AND BONE!AU BASICS

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- Homelander -

HOMELANDER MASTERLIST

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- GOMEZ AND MORTICIA -

A Day Robbed of Love (Part One)

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- AMANDA YOUNG -

AMANDA YOUNG MASTERLIST

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

- AARON HOTCHNER -

Birds of a Feather: FIC DIRECTORY

✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・✫ ✭・.・

-- OSWALD COBB --

Birdhouse in your soul (Drabble) Feather Trail (Blurb)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

Taking requests for

My Mains:

Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)

Roman Roy (Succession)

Second Mains (ATM)

Aaron Hotchner (Criminal Minds)

Amanda Young (Saw)

Oswald Cobb (The Penguin, Reeves!verse)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

Howard Hamlin (Better Call Saul)

Nacho Varga (Better Call Saul)

Tuco Salamanca (Better Call Saul)

Marco and Leonel (Better Call Saul)

Travis Hackett (The Quarry)

Homelander (The Boys)

Michael Myers (Halloween)

RZ! Michael Myers (Halloween Remake)

The Sinclair Brothers (House of Wax)

Hebert West (Re-Animator)

Thomas Hewitt (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

Hans Landa (Inglorious Bastards)

Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men)

Norman Bates (Psycho)

Amanda Young (Saw)

Mark Hoffman (Saw)

Gomez and Morticia Addams (Addams Family)

Lestat De Lioncourt (Interview With The Vampire)

The Vampire Armand (Interview With The Vampire)

Louis De Pointe Du Lac (Interview With The Vampire)

Sofia (Gigante) Falcone (The Penguin)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

RULES

- Will do NSFW -

Not willing to:

Underage content

Necrophilla

Beastiality

OC x character

Ageplay

Thank you all to my lovely mutuals and readers whether you are silent on the blog or not!! You all mean so much to my writing and my love for these characters!!

[usnewsaggregator-blog]

U.S. Releases Most but Not All Remaining JFK Assassination Files

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/u-s-releases-most-but-not-all-remaining-jfk-assassination-files/

U.S. Releases Most but Not All Remaining JFK Assassination Files

The National Archives published nearly 3,000 previously sealed or censored documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Thursday, but the White House said it was delaying the release of others.

Under a 1992 law inspired by the conspiracist movie “JFK,” the National Archives was supposed to have released all of the remaining records by midnight ET — unless President Donald Trump objected on national security grounds.

In the end, the president allowed the release of 2,891 of at least 3,140 documents, with the rest subject to a 180-day review of redactions from objecting agencies. The White House said later that the remaining records would be released “on a rolling basis in the coming weeks.”

“I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted,” Trump wrote in a memo announcing the delay Thursday evening.

“At the same time, executive departments and agencies have proposed to me that certain information should continue to be redacted because of national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns,” he wrote. “I have no choice — today — but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our Nation’s security.”

Still, he warned that agency heads should be “extremely circumspect” in asking for further postponing the release of any of the documents, saying: “The need for continued protection can only have grown weaker with the passage of time.”

President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Newseum / PRNewsfoto file

Trump “wants to ensure there is full transparency here,” a senior administration official said at a briefing. He is “expecting agencies to do a better job in reducing conflict within redactions and get this information out as quickly as possible.”

The CIA said in a statement that the redactions were meant to protect information that would “harm national security — including the names of CIA assets and current and former CIA officers, as well as specific intelligence methods and partnerships that remain viable to protecting the nation today.”

“Every single one of the approximately 18,000 remaining CIA records in the collection will ultimately be released, with no document withheld in full,” the agency said.

Trump, no stranger to conspiracy theories about the Kennedy killing, had appeared eager to get the latest JFK documents out.

The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow. So interesting!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2017

As journalists, scholars and assassination buffs began scouring the thousands of pages Thursday night, it remained to be seen whether the document dump would satisfy the many people who still dispute the finding of the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he gunned down Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.

The assassination shocked the nation and spawned a conspiracy industry that continues to pump out alternative theories about who was really behind the killing.

Officials at the National Archives made a point of trying to tamp down expectations that the newest batch of documents contains any blockbuster revelations — and they have noted repeatedly that about 90 percent of the available records related to the assassination are already public.

Related: What Could Be in the New Kennedy Assassination Records?

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who used his body to shield the mortally wounded president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy after the first shots rang out in Dallas, said earlier Thursday that he hoped the latest declassified papers shed light on why Oswald pulled the trigger.

“I’m hoping that within that material — and there’s lots of it — there will be some indication as to the motive, the reason why he did what he did,” Hill told MSNBC.

Hill said he still blames himself for not having reacted faster when the presidential motorcade came under fire.

“Deep down, I still have that sense of guilt that I should have been able to get there quicker and I didn’t,” he said. “I was the only one who had a chance to do anything.”

The paperwork that was scheduled to be unveiled on Thursday has already been vetted by the Assassination Records Review Board, a panel created in the aftermath of Oliver Stone’s 1991 conspiracy film “JFK,” which popularized the notion that Kennedy was killed by rogue FBI and CIA agents.

The ARRB released the bulk of the JFK assassination paperwork two years after it was founded. The new documents were marked “NBR,” or Not Believed Relevant, the panel’s chairman, John Tunheim, said in March at a National Press Club conference in Washington.

“It’s not that important to keep protecting it,” he said. Still, he added, “I think there will be stuff interesting to researchers.”

PHOTOS: JFK Assassination: The Day the President Was Shot

About 200 pages of the new batch are expected to delve into the six-day visit that Oswald, a onetime Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union, made to Mexico City just before Kennedy’s assassination. One of the juiciest stories is likely to be that of June Cobb, a CIA spy working in Cuba and Mexico, who reported that Oswald had been spotted in Mexico City.

Cobb, born Viola June Cobb in Ponca City, Oklahoma, died Oct. 17, 2015, in New York, where she was living in a Manhattan senior center, an official there and her former sister-in-law told NBC News.

Tunheim said in March that the CIA, the State Department and other federal agencies balked at releasing the Mexico City paperwork “because it was thought to be detrimental to our relationship with the Mexican government at the time.”

Original Article:

Click here

[justanoasisimagines]

Jealousy Headcanons with Oswald

Hey my lovelies, my requests are open for everything except fics. You can find my request guidelinespinned to the top of the page! Credit to cafekitsune for the banner and the divider!

❀Oswald is an easily jealous man. It doesn't take much for his mind to start reading into things. To start imagining scenarios that may not be happening. After all, these things play into one of his biggest fears; losing you.

❀Seeing someone else flirting with you forces Oswald to be reminded of his insecurities to raise their ugly heads again. What are you doing with a guy like him? How long are you going to stay with him? What happens when you get bored and leave him? Will it be the guy flirting with you now?

❀Oswald sits in his head for several hours. Every negative scenario and possibility runs through his mind. His brain forces these thoughts onto him. He does everything in his power to get rid of them; burying himself in work, having a drink etc. But nothing works.

❀It's written all over his face, so when you approach him to ask him if he's alright, Oswald accidentally lashes out at you. he doesn't mean it the second the words leave his lips. He accuses you of cheating on him. For searching around for someone better.

❀When Oswald sees the pain flash across your face., Oswald knows you would never hurt him. You love him as much as he loves you. You're loyal to him, show him more loyalty than anyone else. It's not you Oswald doesn't trust, but it's everyone else. Everyone's out for themselves, willing to step on whoever's toes. They don't care.

❀Oswald knows he's got to make it up to you. Perhaps take you out for a nice dinner, buy you something nice. Oswald make it right. No matter what it takes after all you are worth it.

❀Oswald still has to deal with the reason behind all of this in the first place. He's going to make him pay. Pay for getting in between you and him. Pay for flirting with you in the first place. For thinking it's okay to even think of stealing you, his girl. Oswald's going to have to set an example of him.

❀Oswald would make a public example out of him. In the middle of the warehouse where everyone can see. Oswald makes a point of making it slow. Setting the example, explaining why everyone's been gathered. Then Oswald would ask the man if he believed he could take from him.

❀Oswald doesn't make his death pleasant or quick. He needs people to remember what will happen if they cross you or him. What will happen when they go against Oswald in anyway? He forces everyone to watch.

❀At the end of the day, the message is clear. No one within the gathering today would cross Oswald again. From that moment everyone gives you a wide birth. They won't even look in your direction. Always keeping their head down.